Cougar Sightings Go Beyond the Zoo

WWMT News Ch. 3, SW Michigan | 10/10/02 | Jill Dobson, News 3 Reporter

[FlyVet]

Cougar sightings go beyond the zoo By Jill Dobson, News 3 Reporter

(NEWS 3) - Are wild cougars on the prowl in Michigan?

Cougars have been blamed for a recent attack on farm animals in Kalkaska County. Most people have only seen cougars roaming in the zoo. But researchers at Michigan Wildlife Habitat Foundation say they've had reported sightings including in areas near Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Holland, Three Rivers and Cassopolis.

Researchers say cougars prey on four-legged animals, and are highly unlikely to attack humans.

Emmett Township resident Cyndy Ackley says she and her daughter were shocked to see a cougar one night two years ago. "This big animal just ran across the road and we both looked at each other and thought: that's not a deer,” she says. “And it wasn't a cat or a dog and we thought – that looked like a cougar."

Dennis Fijalkowski of the Michigan Wildlife Habitat Foundation says, "We know we have them and what's important now is to acknowledge them so we can have some protection take place."

The foundation estimates that 50 to 80 of the animals are roaming Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.

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[FlyVet]

Thanks for your post, interesting stuff and a good question whether or not these cats are being released by private citizens, secretly by DNR, or are migrating. Of course I knew of our mtn lions out west, and heard rumors of panthers in FL 30 years ago, but wasn't aware of sightings elsewhere. I'm sure if the become too populous, ranchers and dairy farmers will make them "disappear". In areas where they are hunted they remain wary of humans. I must have spent two months total time in the mtns of NM and AZ hunting deer, and saw not one large cat track, let alone actually seeing a lion. They are usually hunted with dogs.

[gavriloprincip]

I am not a wild life expert, but is 50-80 animals in the state of michigan a viable breeding population?

[bert]

My thought.... the cougars migrated in following an increasing deer population.

[KSCITYBOY]

Here in Kansas City we had reported sightings of one for atleast a year. No evidence was found to support the cougar being around until a lady hit it with her car the other night. Thing looked to weigh about 100 lbs.

[mombonn]

Emmett Township. . .

Yikes, that's next door to me! Now, I drive a Cougar, and that's as close as I want to come to close encounters of the four-legged kind.

[KC Burke]

At post 21, you see the Mountain Lion that was hit by a car a few miles from my house. Suburban Kansas City hasn't seen one for a hundred years. This cat had one inch claws, never trimed or removed, no signs of veternary care or other indications of captivity/release, and was a healthy 130 lb young male 7'1" tip-to-tip. Glad it was killed by a car before it took down a jogger. Reports of sightings in St joseph, MO last year and a video record of one in Lewis County.

Time to get the hunting and pelt bounty in place.

[KC Burke]

Researchers had a tabulation of 53 attacks by Mountain Lions between 1890 and 1990 or one every other year. This was during a time when they were hunted a removed. Now with jogging and back country hiking and virtually no hunting of this animal, it is going to start being a killer again.

[barker]

We saw one here in Greenwood several years ago. It was walking across a pasture two houses away from us. Our neighbor gave us a really hard time over claiming to see one until him and his wife saw one about a month later.

[KC Burke]

Well....we know how wild Greenwood is.....;-)

[mg39]

I didn't know people ate cougar.

Killing an animal for reasons other than to eat it, or to defend oneself from immediate threat, is as wrong as it gets.

[KC Burke]

Defense of property (domestic animals) is a sufficient reason in my book, along with keeping a wild predator out of city parks where children and others with little defense can become its prey.

I'm not overly sentimental about this animal. Its stalking of its prey is too easily a problem for humans on foot.

[mg39]

Quite frankly, I'd rather have you and other hunters here in D.C. stalking a particularly dangerous two-footed predator.

[rwfromkansas]

Lol....indeed.

There have been quite a few in McPherson County. The response is always the same: "We are the state fish and game and we are better than you. You are some stupid country boy that can't tell a puma from a bobcat; never mind the fact that cougers are learned about in every elementary school science class known to man."

[Alas Babylon!]

Is it alright by you if a farmer with livestock kills cougars or wolves attacking their animals? Does a farmer actually have to wait unitl his stock is killed, or can he kill the predator first?

[mg39]

Depends on what you mean by kill the predator first. If he sees a cougar/wolf coming towards his livestock, he should, IMO, try to scare it away first and then kill it as a last resort. However, if you mean going out into the mountains, etc. to kill off cougars and wolves because they might kill his livestock, then I say emphatically no. We share this world with those animals, and we ought to leave them alone whenever possible. As for cougars which might kill kids or other people, there's a much better chance that kids or other people will be killed by other people, yet we don't respond by killing off everyone. Leave the cougars alone.

[mg39]

Oh, and by the way: after reading "Earth Abides," I've been trying to get ahold of "Alas, Babylon," but my library doesn't carry it. I hear it's a great book.

[rwfromkansas]

I am no animal rights activist, but I agree with you.

[mg39]

Thanks. I'm not an animal rights person either, just a guy with a soft spot for animals and who thinks they've been done wrong by us for too long now.

[sweetliberty]

Funny that this story should come up right now. I knew that there were quite a few cougars in Colorado and attacks were becomimg more common when I moved away from there 2 years ago. Last night I was driving through western Arkansas when an animal dashed across the road. It happened very quickly but all I could think was that it looked for all the world like a young cougar and I wondered if there were any wild here. I hadn't really heard of any, but it wasn't anything you might normally see on the road at night. It was too small to be full grown but way too big to be a domestic cat. I suppose it could have been a bobcat, but it appeared to have more rounded ears and the way it moved was both front feet and rear feet extended at the same time.